Feuding barons, tottering Aussie

The radical proposal for a nine-team English Premier League put forward by MCC's chief executive, Keith Bradshaw, and Surrey's chairman, David Stewart, followed a familiar trajectory. Mysteriously leaked on the Friday of the Lord's Test, it was quickly lambasted by Paul Russell of Glamorgan and by the ECB's chairman, Giles Clarke. Despite the involvement of the MCC, Hampshire, Surrey and Lancashire, it survived less than ten days.

Bradshaw's ideas were well worked and in the interests of fans. But his common-sense Australian business approach was based on a misunderstanding of the nature of professional cricket in England.

The proposal never had a chance. The end result is that the 20-team EPL eventually agreed by the ECB, communicated to the public as "a revolution", is to involve all 15 of the counties that contested the County Championship in 1899.

Putting board over counties
Bradshaw, 44, played 25 first-class games for Tasmania in the 1980s before embarking on a business career in international audit and strategy consultancy. Made a partner at Deloitte's in Hobart in his mid-thirties, he was headhunted into the job of MCC chief executive in 2006. He had no sports management experience.

The MCC that he runs is little more than a (well-to-do) fan club with a (well-appointed) ground, and was overtaken in the public eye several years ago by the bigger and more vociferous Barmy Army. On the other hand, it is one of the 19 clubs that controls the ECB through the nomination and appointment of its 12 directors. These 19 carve up the one pot of gold in England cricket: the home games played by the England team and the profits (about £50 million this year) generated from them. These profits mostly make up the losses of the 18 first-class county clubs (£30 million-plus this year).

Bradshaw is an ECB director. They are required by company law to act according to the best interests of the ECB rather than those of its members. It was in this capacity, rather than as representatives of their clubs, that Bradshaw and Stewart prepared their document.

Gold feud
The England pot of gold has grown rapidly over the last 20 years as tickets, TV rights and sponsorships have increased in value. In particular, the arrival in the early nineties of BSB and Sky introduced competition into the TV rights market previously dominated by the BBC.

Where there is gold, there is feuding. In the case of England cricket, the trouble is exacerbated by the presence of 18 first-class clubs, three times as many as are required to provide England with players and grounds. Every five years or so this feud flares up as one faction or another suggests concentrating the best players into fewer teams to improve standards and strengthen England. Fewer teams would also remove the costs of the weaker counties, each of which receives an equal share of the England team's profits.

In the mid-1990s the MCC and the five historic big-ground counties (Surrey, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Warwickshire) formed the Test Match Grounds Consortium and attempted a power grab at the Test & County Cricket Board. At the end of the decade, the same group argued strongly for a greater share of the TV revenues derived from England games played at their grounds. The threat was so grave that the ECB developed contingency plans to stage major games at lesser grounds. Then, in 2003, Mike Atherton and Bob Willis, through the Cricket Reform Group, proposed a six-team domestic format.

The TCCB / ECB successfully fended off these heretical notions. For public consumption, the governing body deployed the plausible line that England and Wales should have three times the six teams in Australia because its population is three times bigger. Since 2000, three lesser counties (Hampshire, Glamorgan and Durham) have enhanced their position by expanding their grounds and hosting England games.

This makes nine big-ground clubs and ten small. Until earlier this year, an uneasy equilibrium prevailed between the 19, much like the scene in Reservoir Dogs when the tooled-up Messrs Pink, Orange and White, Nice Guy Eddie and Joe debated the identity of the traitor. In a windowless committee room, 19 chairmen stand guard over the gold, bat in one hand and the ECB Articles of Association in the other. The Articles, and hence the ECB itself, have one overriding purpose, vastly more important than the success of the England team, than the fans, and more vital even than money: to preserve the present structure of county cricket.

If any of the 19 start to wave their bats around they are liable to get walloped by the rest.

The IPL model
Then came the Indian Premier League. Its organisers developed a simple formula of eight teams playing 59 games in six weeks, with no India games scheduled during the tournament. The eight teams enabled talent to be concentrated, and 59 games at the rate of about two per day allowed television to cover all of them. These factors, and the presence of top Indian and overseas players, maximised the audience and generated the revenue needed to attract star players. The result was dramatic financial success.

England's existing Twenty20 format, although a commercial improvement on the heavily loss-making County Championship, features few England and overseas stars. It competes with the England team and features far too many games (97) for television. Talent is dispersed among 18 teams and many of the games are played at small county grounds. The result is limited financial success.

An English Premier League organised on a similar basis to the IPL would create a second pot of gold for English cricket. The Bradshaw-Stewart plan was designed, on behalf of the ECB, to exploit just this opportunity.

The plan
This plan, prepared with the help of Deloitte's Sports Business Group, provided for nine teams playing 57 matches in 25 days in June and July, with each team based at one of the nine major grounds. Total revenue was forecast at £86 million per year, close to England's £100 million and three times county cricket's current £25 - £30 million. Annual profit was forecast at over £50 million, also similar to that generated by the England team.

Each team would be owned by a partnership of the relevant county and external investors. Crucially, these investors would pay upfront for their stake, meaning that they, rather than the county, would bear most of the financial risk. Conversations with potential investors suggested that the sale of the nine partnerships would raise more than £300 million over ten years, similar to the sum achieved in the IPL.

Given the Indian experience, there is little doubt that this competition would present a compelling proposition for fans, investors, broadcasters and the top players. Domestic cricket, too, would be freed from its dependence on the England team and would finally stand alone as a viable sports business.

Although the plan mentioned that players from all 18 county clubs would be involved, it was unclear how teams would be formed and how much participation and control the smaller ten counties would have. There was an indication that some of the profits would be shared with the ten, and with the Professional Cricketers' Association, other national boards, and even grassroots cricket. But it provided neither numbers nor guarantees.

The threat of revolution
Although the plan was incomplete and was presented merely as a discussion document, it evoked memories of the Test Match Grounds Consortium. Furthermore, the number nine has a special significance. If at any point nine of the 19 controlling ECB members suddenly became rich, they could bung the 21 lesser members (the 20 Minor Counties and the Minor Counties Cricket Association) and assemble the 30 votes required to remove from the ECB Articles the various provisions that protect the interests of the lesser first-class counties. The way would then be open for a breakaway.

For fans this would be a terrific boon. Apart from a star-studded EPL, the reduced number of clubs would produce a stronger England, allow fewer, bigger grounds, and make more money for the game. A profitable domestic structure would mean England could be run to win rather than to make money for the counties, leading to fewer England games, a reduced rate of injuries and burnout, and the prospect of sustained success against the likes of Australia. If sense prevailed amid the vast torrent of cash, a return of free-to-air coverage of England's home Tests would become possible.

The Bradshaw-Stewart scheme was therefore in the interests of fans. However, Giles Clarke, without adducing any evidence and contrary to that produced by the IPL, claimed that broadcasters would not be interested in a tournament with "made-up" teams. The ECB duly threw the proposal out. Its PR Department, curiously, did not say that the English Premier League has 2.5 times as many teams as the IPL even though India's population is 20 times bigger.

Conclusion
The IPL has already destroyed the first England home series (against Sri Lanka) next summer and driven the ECB into the arms of Allen Stanford. From 2011, the BCCI is due to stage two tournaments. Without a tight, lucrative EPL, England's flabby game is wide open to further financial assault.

In preparing and selling his plan, Bradshaw made three mistakes. Despite having lived through the Packer era at close quarters, he failed to realise the revolutionary implications of a reduced-team English Premier League. Then, instead of tying up 30 votes, he went into battle with just four supporters. Lastly, he did not see that professional cricket in England is neither a game nor a business, but a conspiracy. His plan was leaked, preventing closed-door discussion at the ECB and raising the hackles of those caught by surprise.

Revolutions are all-or-nothing affairs. For starting a revolution but leaving his gun at home, Mr Red-and-Yellow duly received a good clubbing.

In 1976 the extra money that Packer offered for Australian TV rights did not sway the ACB. A year later Packer made his move. Here, the extra money promised by a nine-team EPL has not secured ECB backing. Big investors are hovering and the issue of fewer domestic teams is sure to come round again.

It always does.